


Soft Things

by ifnotformariano



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awesome Foggy Nelson, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Gen, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Humor, Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson at Columbia, No Spoilers, POV Matt Murdock, Pre-Canon, Pre-Season/Series 01, Sick Character, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 10:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20487119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifnotformariano/pseuds/ifnotformariano
Summary: Matt is really trying his damnedest to listen to Stick when it comes to friends— that is, to not make any.Enter Foggy.





	Soft Things

“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

_It'd really be better if we_ _didn't_, Matt thought but did not say. Instead, he said, "You’re intolerable.”

“And you sound like a cat currently in the process of coughing up a hairball.” Foggy shot back. Matt wiped his nose on his arm, not his sleeve because he was wearing one of Foggy's hoodies, which swam on him and also wasn't his. Matt tried to keep his bodily fluids off of other people's things. Foggy silently handed him a tissue, which Matt used to wipe off the snot on his arm, and Foggy was back to fussing, not that he'd ever gotten away from it in the first place. “I should get you some more water.”

Matt opened his mouth to protest—

“If you complain, I’ll get you _ two._” Foggy chastised, and Matt huffed, going silent.

Foggy stood from their dorm's rickety wooden chair bought on Columbia's shitty budget and traipsed to his side of the room to rummage underneath his bed for the water.

Matt, laying deathly sick and lethargic in his bed, could be intimidating when he wanted to be. He could keep them questioning; he could be just nice enough that no one would be able to quite decide if he was really just a coward or if the blind guy could actually throw punch. They wouldn't be able to describe the sickness that lay beneath the teeth of his liar's smile and Matt could keep his head held high like he already knew who would win in a fight— and he did.

He could wear people down with just a standoff. It was all about the confidence, the air he could give off.

And yet…

And_ yet. _

Matt didn't imagine that he looked or sounded all that intimidating with snot dripping from his nose, his voice sounding like a chainsaw and only his head visible from under his mountain of blankets— most of them Foggy’s. Matt had one that'd been sent from the orphanage, which had been nice, but also the blankets at St. Agnes had always been hell so Matt usually slept without it, and subsequently woke up with one of Foggy's (which was a problem, but Matt wasn't entirely sure how to bring it up in a way that wasn't rude.)

Foggy apparently had _ five _ blankets that Matt was told were swathed in patterns that were debatably too childish to be owned by a college student. However, they were college students, so they didn't particularly care.

Matt was hot, sweatier than he would've already been without the blankets, but he didn't want to be ungrateful. Felt better than St. Agnes' cotton.

As Matt muttered more than called, "You're _ insufferable,_" he was finding his words to sound first and foremost pathetic more than anything. Or like a frog. A really pathetic frog.

Foggy, grabbing yet another bottled water— didn’t this man care about the environment at all?— replied, “Insufferable? That’s not a very nice thing to say about the wonderful, amazing, devilishly handsome guy getting you hydration.”

_ "Repugnant." _

"Y'know, you're kinda ruining the vibe, but you being sick is a _ great _ way to bond." Foggy said, closer than when Matt had listened last.

Matt frowned and dug himself deeper into his screechy bunny-sized bed, all five blankets washing over his shoulders just a little more. "We are _ not _ bonding."

"I'm taking care of you." Foggy pointed out. "I'm your mother hen."

"Did you just call me a chicken?" Matt rasped.

"What is this, Back to the Future one, two and also three?"

In reply, Matt violently coughed.

“Was that the hairball?” Foggy asked, back by Matt’s side with the water, lid unscrewed. “Sit up.”

Matt sniffled. “I don’t _ need _ water.”

“Do we have to go over the cat analogy again?” Foggy asked, sloshing the water around in the plastic as he lightly shook the bottle, as if shaken water was more appealing than non-shaken water.

For probably the fourth time that day, Matt kicked up the blankets and fought to shoo them off of him, his limbs flailing like an upside down beetle.

"Matt, c'mon—"

He croaked, “I don’t need your _ bedside manner._”

This would probably be just about the level of frustration that it would normally take for Matt to get up and take a walk around campus, possibly slamming the door behind him. As it were, Matt forced the layers upon layers of blankets onto the floor, putting his entire body weight into getting the damn things off of him— and falling with them off of his bed, narrowly avoiding whacking his chin on his nightstand. He was sent tumbling onto the gigantic pile of blankets, padding his landing.

Foggy was shouting, probably waving his hands around, having some sort of emotional fit. In barely a second, Foggy was by his side, trying to help Matt up. Matt waved him off, detaching Foggy from his sweaty skin, driving himself away and having the great pleasure of collapsing backwards onto his stiff, wailing bed. 

“Woah there.” Foggy was saying, like some sort of— some sort of… cowboy or something. He was either trying to get Matt to stand or to shove the rest of him back onto the tiny twin bed with the squeaky springs that never shut up. Just to spite him, Matt pushed Foggy away again and stood up by his own volition, with his own willpower, strength, and—

“Fuck.” Matt’s head started to swim. He stumbled, and Foggy grabbed his shoulders, shoving him to sit down on the bed, which immediately, of course, creaked. Loudly. Jesus. Matt grabbed at his head, which absolutely did not feel like it was in a laundry machine filled with knives.

“You’d think that you’d learn, at one point.” Foggy tutted. “You know, after the first time you stood up too quickly, lost your balance, and hit your head on an armchair.”

“That was once.”

“That was yesterday.” Foggy admonished. “You really need to rest.”

“I _ have _ rested.” Matt said. “For hours.”

“If complaining counts as resting, then sure.” Foggy replied.

“I haven't spent the _ entire _ time complaining.” Matt muttered, rubbing his hand across his nose.

“Fine.” Foggy agreed, handing him another kleenex. “You're right. You've spent the majority of the time being petulant."

“I am _ not_—”

“Fuck yeah, you are.” Foggy replied, gently pushing Matt back into a lying down position as Matt wiped off his hand with the kleenex.

"You really should sleep at some point." Foggy ventured.

"I sleep." Matt murmured.

"Yeah, like an hour per month."

"I _ sleep." _ Matt said with a little more force, but unable to muster up the amount of energy to sound bitter or angry.

"Have you tired yourself out yet?" Foggy asked hopefully.

Matt unburied a hand from under the blankets and flipped Foggy off.

"You know, you're all grumpy and tsun or whatever—"

"Tsun?"

Foggy groaned. "Don't judge me. Candace had an anime phase. Google it later or whatever."

"Mm. Or you could just tell me what it means."

"It's what you are." Foggy replied. "You're grumpy and tsun."

Matt would call himself, at this direct moment, pathetic, useless, depressing, clammy and irritable, but he didn't know what tsun meant and he felt himself frowning at Foggy's use of "grumpy."

Which probably wasn't helping against Foggy's word choice.

"But." Foggy added. "Bet you'd do the same for me. I'm pretty grumpy when I'm sick too, you know."

"I'm gonna leave you in the dorm and move back to St. Agnes when you get sick." Matt replied with a sandpaper voice.

"Says the guy who somehow always manages to pay for dinner, even when I talk to the servers beforehand."

"I have my secrets."

"That was ominous." Foggy said. "Point is. You're being a grump right now but you're alright. So far. It's only been a few months. Maybe you're secretly a gigantic dick."

"I am." Matt said seriously.

Foggy pushed Matt's hair back out of his face. "You can get back to nerding it out with your textbooks once you can stand without falling over."

"I can—"

"Sure, Matty." Foggy snorted skeptically, sorting out the blankets out on the floor, judging by the rustling.

Matt paused. "Matty?"

"... Uh. Yeah. Nickname. S'what friends do. Why? Do you not like it?" Foggy fretted, heartbeat rising.

"No, no, I mean— it's— it's, uh, good." Matt faltered.

It wasn't really good, though. He was better than friends, he wasn’t supposed to have _ friends._ People were _always_ the downfall of one another. He wasn’t supposed to get _ weak._

He'd spent these months distancing himself from Foggy, making sure not to draw too close or get attached.

Acquaintances was one thing. This wasn't acquaintances.

_ Fuck, _Matt thought, _I have a friend. _

And doing a quick skim over the time it'd been since September, it was undeniable from the way Foggy interacted him.

_Matthew Michael Murdock. You idiot._

He meant to tell Foggy that they should probably spend less time together, he really did, as well as something Stick used to say, but Foggy was already piling all of the blankets back on him, which were hot but also happened to be really comfy. The only word he managed to get out was, “Soft,” and then he’d already forgotten the pages long scripted speech he'd been forming in his head.

“Yeah, buddy, they are.” Foggy was saying, and Matt’s eyes were already fluttering closed, head still woozy from its earlier rush. He yawned.

"So are you gonna drink your water this time or should I get you a sippy cup, you big baby?"

…

"Matt?"

…

"Uh... Matty?"

...

"Fucking _ finally _."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not happy with how I wrote Matt, since this isn't really how I like to characterize him, but this is really supposed to be more of a fun fic than a character study piece, so I'm fine with it lol
> 
> first sickfic— hope y'all enjoyed!
> 
> instagram/tumblr: @ifnotfornatasha


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